


Here and Ever After

by fangirl_squee



Series: Revenant [3]
Category: The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 07:17:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17720624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl_squee/pseuds/fangirl_squee
Summary: Being a ghost isn’t much of an obstacle to love.





	Here and Ever After

**Author's Note:**

> Last part!! Hopefully I'll have some more Doyles fic soon as I finish this pile of wips!!!
> 
> Thanks to maddie, for betaing.

 

Pterodactyl Jones carefully slipped through the doorway to the penthouse of the Plaza Hotel, scanning for signs of danger. He was usually a one-hotel detective, but the Plaza management had called him directly and he was hardly in a position to turn down work.

Apparently there was a grade-A haunting going on in their penthouse. It had started off small – unexpected cold patches, items being moved unseen, that sort of thing – but recently it had gotten to the stage where people refused to stay there. They heard voices at all hours. Objects floated through the air. No matter how many times the staff replenished the liquor cabinet, it was only a matter of hours before it was emptier than mother hubbard’s cupboard.

So they’d called him, the best in the haunted-hotel business, and he’d sped down faster than an express train driven by an Olympic sprinter. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, the empty liquor bottles he’d been expecting all covered in a fine layer of dust. Even the cleaning staff were too frightened to come by.

A burst of woman’s laughter from the bedroom made Jones duck behind the couch, but there was no ghostly follow-up. He waited for a few minutes, listening. Now that he was paying closer attention, he could hear two voices, a man’s and a woman’s, both coming from the bedroom.

Jones regarded the door warily, fingering the chalk in his pocket. If things went south, he could always put down a few sigils and send them packing. Most ghosts were happy to make their own way to the other side, once you pointed them in the right direction, and he had enough supernatural experience to deal with the ones that weren’t.

He cleared his throat, and blew his ghost whistle. “Ghosts of the Plaza Hotel penthouse! I command you to reveal yourselves to me!” There was a pause in the noise in the bedroom, so Jones repeated, “I  _ command _ you to come forward!”

“All right, all right, there’s no need to be so – Oh, it’s you! PJ, as I don’t live or breathe! What on earth are you doing here?”

Jones stared at the ghost leaning half-out of the still-closed door. “Frank Doyle?”

Frank grinned. “In the non-flesh!”

Frank had been Jones’ old partner, until disagreements had made them part ways. Jones had heard he’d died a few years later from some supernatural encounter or other. It was always a danger in their line of work, even for someone as talented as Frank had been. Jones had gone to his  _ funeral _ . If Frank had been a ghost at the time, surely Jones would have known it.

Although this ghostly Frank looked different. Not just the obvious transparency that one would expect from a spirit, but this Frank was a little more untidy – his hair slightly wild and his shirt partially untucked. Jones raised his eyebrows. In life, Frank had almost been pretty well put together even when he was blind drunk and going three rounds with a feisty ghost.

 

Most different of all was the easy smile Frank wore.

“Jonesy, not that it’s not a pleasure to see an old friend such as yourself, but I am rather in the middle of something at the moment,” said Frank, “maybe you could come back in, oh, say, a day or two?”

“You’re dead,” said Jones, “what could you possibly be-“

“Frank darling, what on earth is taking you so long - Oh, you didn’t tell me we had a visitor!” said a woman, floating through to shake his hand, “Sadie Parker, deceased, charmed.”

Sadie floated over and shook (or rather, put her hand through) his hand. It felt like he’d dunked his arm in ice water. He tried not to let it show.

“Sadie, meet Pterodactyl Jones, one of my old partners,” said Frank, “Jones, meet the best thing I have ever had the pleasure of being in the middle of.”

Sadie smiled brightly, slipping through the door. “The pleasure is all mine darling. As we have a guest I suppose it’s only polite to offer drinks.”

“Right you are Sadie love,” said Frank.

He floated over to the liquor cart. Pulling at one of the bottle, he seemed to produce a pale, ghostly version of the liquor bottle and the two glasses.

“You certainly seem a lot happier than when you were alive,” said Jones.

“I imagine it’s the company,” said Frank, handing Sadie a glass.

“But Frank, you barely see anyone but me.”

“Exactly,” said Frank, clinking his glass against Sadie’s.

 

“But what are you doing  _ here _ ?” asked PJ.

“You know how it is PJ,” said Frank, “One moment a ghoul’s getting the better of me, the next thing I know my spirit is being summoned from the afterlife, and then there was Sadie, looking at my from the other side of the séance candle line.”

They smiled at each other, and Sadie kissed Frank’s cheek on her way to refill their glasses. PJ could barely remember Frank giving anyone so much as a half smile, let alone looking at someone as Frank looked at Sadie now, beaming at her.

“A car accident had taken me out a few months before you see,” said Sadie, “I felt badly about wrecking the car, so I was helping poor Bobo scare up some money, so to speak, with some séances. It seemed only fair at the time.” She handed Frank his glass. “He would pretend to summon a ghost, and I would appear to answer a few banal questions. It was a bit like being in a particularly tiresome play.”

“Until Frank got summoned,” said Jones.

Sadie smiled. “Yes, until then. He caused quite a stir as he rose up out of the Ouija board, all glowing eyes and fearsome voice. The effect was quite mesmerising.”

“Thank you love,” said Frank, “I admit, I was mostly making it up as I went along.”

“Well you did a wonderful job of it darling,” said Sadie, “It certainly livened things up, so to speak.”

“But didn’t they send you back after they’d summoned you?” said Jones.

“Ah, they tried, but this one here got them to break the circle,” said Frank, “once Sadie has her mind set on something she’s a hard one to beat.”

“Oh it was nothing darling,” said Sadie with a laugh, “there was this one fellow, a nervous sort, and blew on the back of his neck and he jumped up right away and broke the circle.”

“Thus freeing me from the rules of the séance,” said Frank.

“I’d only just met you darling,” said Sadie, “I wasn’t about to let you slip back into the afterlife without getting a drink first. Speaking of which, could you?”

“Certainly love, I was just on the way myself,” said Frank, pouring them out another two drinks.

“How are you doing that?” said Jones.

“Oh, this?” said Frank, tugging at another bottle and producing another spectral version of it, “I’m not quite sure. Something to do with force of will, I’d imagine. I’d pour one for you but I’m not sure you could drink it.”

“Frank, I’m sure Mr Jones has stopped by for more than just a drink,” said Sadie, “surely if if he’s here then he needs your help.”

Frank floated fully out of the door to stand closer to her. “Sadie love, I have all the time in the world to help out Jonesy with whatever he needs, but I only have the rest of existence to spend with you. I know how to prioritise.”

Sadie smiled at Frank, and Frank smiled back. They clinked their glasses together.

 

“Actually, I’m here on behalf of the hotel,” said Jones.

 

“Why whatever do they want darling?” said Sadie, not taking her eyes off Frank.

 

Jones cleared his throat awkwardly. “They’d like you to… check out of the hotel.”

 

“But we never even checked in!” said Frank, “The nerve of some people.”

 

“That might be part of the problem, “ said Jones, “Apparently you’ve been scaring some of the guests.”

 

“Well that’s simply ridiculous of them, I’m not scary at all, am I Frank?”

 

“Only sometimes love,” said Frank, “when provoked.”

 

“Then that’s settled,” said Sadie, “Besides, Mr Jones, where would you have stay if not here?”

 

PJ hesitated, trying to find the right words. “You could sail away.”

 

“I don’t like boats.”

 

“I mean you could go to the next level.”

 

“We’re in the penthouse darling, there  _ is _ no higher level.”

 

“I mean you could go to the other side.”

 

“Wouldn’t the hotel have just as much of an issue if we were on the other side of the building?”

 

“I think,” said Frank, amused, “that PJ intends for us to move on into the afterlife Sadie love.”

 

“Oh!” said Sadie, “Why, Mr Jones, you should have just said so.”

 

“So you will?”

 

Sadie considered this for a moment. “No.”

 

“Sorry Peej, it looks like we’re staying here,” said Frank, pouring another two drinks.

 

“Isn’t there anything you want to do or see out there?” said Jones, turning to Frank, “there’s a whole afterlife just waiting.”

 

“There  _ is _ something I’d like to do,” said Frank, “and I  _ was _ doing it before you showed up. Besides, you know there’s no guarantee that Sadie and I would end up in the same place in the afterlife, and I am certainly not going to spend eternity without her.”

 

“Oh darling, you don’t have to worry about  _ that _ ,” said Sadie, “I would be more than a match for any force that tried to separate us.”

 

Frank smiled at her, a besotted look on his face, and handed her a drink.

 

PJ switched focus back to Sadie. If Frank was following her lead then she was the one he had to point in the right direction.

 

“Isn’t there anything  _ you _ want to do in the afterlife?” asked Jones.

 

Sadie humed, thoughtful. “What sort of things are there to do that one cannot do here?”

 

“Well, I only know this side of the wall,” said Jones, “But you probably wouldn’t keep getting interrupted by frightened hotel guests.”

 

“That does sound tempting,” said Sadie. She sat her spectral glass down on the counter, her face serious. “Tell me Mr Jones, what kind of places do you suppose are in the afterlife?”

 

PJ fumbled for examples. “Uh, all sorts. Any sort you’d like.”

 

“Hotels?”

 

“Just like this but nicer.”

 

“Bars?”

 

“You’d never have to worry about them running out of liquor.”

 

“Auction houses?”

 

“Every great relic you’ve ever heard of up for bidding.”

 

Sadie paused. “Churches?”

 

“Sure!”

 

Sadie looked at Frank for a long moment. “It  _ would  _ be nice to make things official.”

 

“Sadie, are you saying what I think you’re saying?” said Frank.

 

“Well that depends,” said Sadie, “what would  _ you  _ say if I was?”

 

Frank took her hands. “I would say yes, most certainly yes.”

 

Sadie beamed at him. “Then I most certainly  _ am _ asking you! Franklyn Deceased Doyle, will you -”

 

“ _ Yes _ ,” said Frank.

 

Sadie threw her arms around Frank, who kissed her soundly, going on just a shade too long. PJ coughed once, and then coughed again, louder.

 

“Well then Mr Jones,” said Sadie, a little out of breath, “We shall be out of here momentarily, as it seems we have an urgent appointment to get to.” She looked around. “How exactly does one get to the afterlife? Shall we call a cab?”

 

“I imagine if we focus our considerable wills towards it, we’ll get there,” said Frank.

 

After a short pause, a glowing light appeared around the door to the bedroom. It started faintly, building to a brightness that hurt PJ’s eyes to look at.

 

“Good to see you PJ,” said Frank, looking sincere and younger than Jones had ever known him.

 

“Likewise, Frank,” said Jones, “and congratulations.”

 

Frank grinned. “Shall we, love?” he said, offering his arm to Sadie.

 

“We most certainly shall darling,” said Sadie, “Goodbye Mr Jones, wonderful to meet you.”

 

They walked, arm in arm, into the blinding light.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi: mariusperkins on most places


End file.
